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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24896566">A story about sparrows</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/iMeiyaku/pseuds/iMeiyaku'>iMeiyaku</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Naruto</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>F/M</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-06-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-06-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 02:01:21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>7</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>11,955</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24896566</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/iMeiyaku/pseuds/iMeiyaku</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>This is a redo of my other work: Butterfly kiss! I tought it suited better with a sparrow theme. Now with more chapters.</p><p>In this fic, Tsunade had intel about the Akatsuki’s attack on Sunagakure and sends Team Gai and Team Kakashi on the mission with you as the last backup.<br/>(From someone who didn't read or watched the anime of this part of the story but really liked the idea of saving Gaara and pursuing him as a romantic interest ^^' sorry for any inconsistent parts with the original story!)</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Gaara (Naruto)/Reader</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>33</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. She who wore a sparrow mask</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The special ability you possessed was rare.</p><p>For the few of your peers who knew about it, they would tell you that it was like a gift from a long-lost god, a trump card that could change the tide in a losing battle. Good thing for you, few people knew about it, and the Anbu who had been sheltering you and teaching you the ways of survival ever since you were orphaned from the war years ago were the best people to keep secrets. Sometimes, winds of your miraculous talent would travel from village to village, but the specifics were always so vague…that it would never grow from being a simple urban legend.</p><p>However, although those legends often fall into deaf ears, it wasn’t the case for a beautiful (and busty!) skilled doctor. Gambling goddess that she was, one day she set off alone on this mad treasure hunt and gathered intel until she found a reliable lead that led her…to you.</p><p>She bravely talked to your secretive guardians and, after much effort, eventually got to met you in person. Although you couldn’t teach her anything about your special healing powers since it was so personal to you, you saw in her recklessness to dig blindly in this barely there rumor that you were, a strong and reliable ally.  You promised her that if she ever needed your assistance in the future, you would gladly help someone like her who would always do what she believed was right.</p><p>That was many years ago.</p><p>Back to the present, you couldn’t believe that you were actually standing tall behind the Hokage’s chair. It kind of felt unreal to you that this reckless woman you met when you were only a child would ever become the head of a prosperous village like the Hidden Leaf. She spoke with impressive confidence to the ninjas before her, explaining the dire situation that was happening in their ally village in the desert.</p><p>“We all know how dangerous the Akatsuki can be, so I’m sending you all on a reconnaissance mission. To be completely honest, I’m not sure even all of you will be enough if the worst-case scenario comes, so I asked for extra help this time.”</p><p>Saying so, she gestured to you. You were asked not to wear your Anbu mask this time for the sake of one the seniors present. In its place, your face was half-hidden with a sparrow mask that only covered your eyes, reminiscent of some details of your ability. You somewhat felt more secure with a mask on, having trained with one for so long with your guardians.</p><p>“Please think of her as your shadow. Her role is only to intervene if the situation gets out of control.” She then completely turned around to face you, a sad look on her face as she whispered: “I trust you completely, but I hope they won’t need your help.”</p><p>You simply nodded to her, understanding. You then turned and faced forward the ninjas in front of you and bowed before taking your leave while they stayed to be filled in more details about this delicate mission. When they left the village some days later, you did as instructed and walked in their shadows. The younger ones seemed to be the same age as you and were quite entertaining to watch as they quarrelled and playfully fought amongst each other on the way to the sand village.</p><p>“They’re so full of life”, you thought as you observed their soul shine as bright as the sun of Sunagakure.</p><p> </p><p>You had only known them for a short while, but you eventually grew fond of them and came to wish that their souls would continue to shine bright forever. However, you knew all too well that in time of conflict, some of them were bound to go out. You continued to watch silently as the fate of the man they called Gaara turned for the worst… The ever-bright Naruto, his great friend, was lashing out at an old woman named Chiyo with grief while the others couldn’t hold back their tears, having failed to save their friend. You watched silently until Chiyo started talking about a way to revive Gaara, sacrificing herself in the process.</p><p>“There’s no need for you to do that”, you suddenly stated as you stepped out of the shadows for the first time in the whole mission.</p><p>Everyone until now had seem to have forgotten your existence until this point, too focused on their rescue mission. Suddenly, at once, all eyes were on you.</p><p>“You…YOU should have done something! You were supposed to HELP us when we needed! Where were you when THIS happened!? Weren’t you always watching us from the beginning?!”, exclaimed Naruto, furious.</p><p>“I was”, you said, trying to keep your voice even. You could see two sets of souls inside him burning ferociously, almost ready to bite you in blind rage.</p><p>“…and I can help you now” you replied, resolute.</p><p>You then turned your head toward Chiyo.</p><p>“From what I understand of the situation, you were the one who put the soul of an ancient beast inside of this man, which caught the interest of those bad guys we were watching. When they succeeded in extracting the beast, that’s what killed him, am I correct?”</p><p>“But I can fix my mistake. I know a life-transference technique that can save him. I’ve caused so much suffering for him, but now I can atone for my sin with my life.” she answered, ready to accept her fate.</p><p>“Isn’t that the coward way’s out?” you said to the old woman, starting to feel irritated. “Wouldn’t you want to be with him and apologize in person?”</p><p>“What are you saying!” Snapped Sakura who had also done everything she could to heal the poor redhead. “He’s already DEAD! She’s the only one who can save him so at least let her have her last wish!”</p><p>You slowly turned to look at Sakura. Her soul too was shining bright with compassion. She had grown unexpectedly close to Chiyo in these past few days and you had learned a lot about medicine by tailing them during this mission. You could only smile softly at her at how she had grown since the beginning.</p><p>“I can save him without anyone sacrificing themselves. That is what my special ability is” you said softly, your calm smile visible from the half-sparrow mask you were still wearing.</p><p>Silence befell the room. Immediately, you could feel everyone’s eyes on you, full of questions. Is that even possible? She must be lying right? That would be way too overkill if you could cheat death without consequences…</p><p>Not wanting to waste any more time, you turned back to Chiyo: “If I’m able to bring him back from the dead, then you will be able to apologize properly to him”.</p><p>It took her a moment to realize you were serious, but as she continued to look at you and saw your resolution, tears of what looked like relief started to pour from the old woman’s eyes. It was at that very moment that you knew… that even if what you were about to do would hurt like hell, it was all worth it. You smiled at her with compassion before making your way to the inanimated body on the floor.</p><p>“Please, step back” you instructed to your curious crowd as you took your position over him.</p><p>“What… What are you doing?!” yelled a very confused Naruto as he saw you straddling the corpse of his precious friend.</p><p>You never liked doing this with an audience, because it was a very complex process to explain and it was indeed a very awkward position to be in, given the situation. You had positioned your legs on either side of the body, basically sitting on his pelvis for support. On a living person this position might have looked pretty steamy, but on a corpse…yikes. But it was absolutely necessary to avoid… “complications”.</p><p>“Listen to me well please, you stated slowly while removing your mask, when I’m done, I ask of you NOT to separate the both of us. What I am about to do is basically break my own soul to go search for his and bring him back. It’s difficult to explain, but I kind of attach my soul to his and guide it to his original body. If you separate us too soon, our souls might break apart and there’s a danger for… both of us to die.”</p><p>“So it is dangerous for you after all!” said Chiyo, suddenly regretting her choice and stepping forward to stop you. At that moment, you thought that you really couldn’t afford to mess up, for she would blame herself for it even more after.</p><p>“NOT if you follow my instructions, you said, taking a long breath out, steadying yourself. I’ll also ask of you to stand back and not move during the entire time. I know it must be hard for all of you to just… go and trust me like that so suddenly, but please have faith…”</p><p>Your eyes fell upon each and everyone of them… and they each slowly gave nods of approval, some reluctantly.</p><p>“Alright then, you say to the peaceful sleeping face below you with apprehension…please excuse me”. Bringing your face down to his, you softly placed a kiss over cold lips. If they were chocked before seeing you straddle their dead friend, you could only imagine how petrified they were to see you kiss him… “At least it’s keeping them still” you thought to yourself as you felt your soul slowly drift into the man they called Gaara.</p><p>Navigating through his entire body from his lips, you could get a pretty good feeling of what his soul looked like even without meeting him in person before. Torment, loyalty, sadness, broken trusts and newfound ones. You thought that this man must have the most resilient soul of all with what he must have gone through in his life…</p><p>After getting a good feel of what you were looking for, you pushed your soul out of his body and broke it into little pieces. There laid the secret of your ability: your soul was so fragile that it could break apart and be at multiple places at once, allowing to search the nearby area for another’s soul and bring it back. It was therefore very important that the surrounding living people stayed still as you instructed, so that you wouldn’t attach to their souls by accident and have a mess to make sense of when you came to, kind of like a big puzzle with extra pieces. For bystanders, even if souls should not be visible in the naked eye, since you had to infuse yours with some of your chakra, this technique looked like thousands of little sparrows frantically searching for something very precious. You had now idea why it took that form, but you once heard from an old sailor in a mission who had a sparrow tattoo that in ancient folklore, people believed that this kind of bird was able to carry your soul straight to heaven.</p><p>It took a bit of time but you finally found something resembling what you were looking for: it had the same feeling of what you had felt earlier and it was extremely rare that two souls were alike. You then proceeded to attach your soul to it as planned and brought it back to Gaara’s empty shell of a body, recalling at the same time all the unused shards of your own soul back to you. Slowly, you broke apart the kiss and lifted your head, watching his face recover some color as his soul reintegrated his body. Using simple healing techniques, you helped his metabolism ease back to the normal state of a living organism as you could feel a wave of relief pass through your flabbergasted crowd.</p><p>After some time, the friend that was once considered lost forever finally started to open his eyes.</p><p>Still in your straddling position from before, you eased your head close to his once more so that he would be able to hear your faltering voice. You knew that you would soon lose consciousness, but this was happening way faster than usual… you thanked your embarrassing self from several minutes ago for the convenient position as you muttered as coherently as possible your final instructions.</p><p>“Welcome back to the land of the living… Please stay close to me…” As your voice finally loses strength, you fall flat on top of a very confused and sluggish man who had just come back to life.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Are sparrow a symbol of good luck?</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>In the end, everyone came back to Sunagakure alive and well.</p>
<p>At first, there was a lot of confusion from Gaara as to why there was a female body on top of him when he woke up. He had never been able to touch anyone before in the first place, so this was quite the shock, to say the least. His first reflex, understandably, was to shove you violently away, but the second he started pushing you off him, he felt a pain like he had never felt before.</p>
<p>“Don’t push her away!” had said Temari as she recalled your last instructions.</p>
<p>It was then tentatively explained to everyone by Chiyo that the pain he felt was probably due to his soul still being linked to yours. “Is that why she was… sitting on him at the beginning? So she wouldn’t fall too far from him when she was done?” thought out loud Sakura who was already starting to piece together the mechanics of this peculiar technique. </p>
<p>All the way back to the sand village, they had to be extra careful and keep you as close to Gaara as possible so that it would not cause any unnecessary pain. You were unconscious the whole way back. When the group all finally got back in the Kazekage’s main building, Temari and Kankuro prepared a special room for you and Gaara to rest together, as it was proven that separating the both of you was physically impossible for the time being.</p>
<p>A week passed before you finally came back to your senses.</p>
<p>When you came to, it was dark and warm around you and you felt strangely… secure. Things were a bit fuzzy for you still, and in your hazy mind you tried your best to recall what happened.</p>
<p>“I must have used my ability to bring someone back. I probably passed out…” you recalled. You knew for a fact that this technique took a lot from you and you knew from past experiences that there was always some window of time after you brought someone back where you wouldn’t be very functional. However, you felt like this time, something went wrong somehow. If your eyes weren’t playing tricks on you, it was definitively night time, but you recalled that it was the day when you used your ability.</p>
<p>“How long was I asleep?” you asked softly before earing an unexpected answer coming from above your head.</p>
<p>“Something like a week” the sleepy deep voice said.</p>
<p>Your eyes immediately shot up to see the very man you remember kissing to bring back from the dead, only very alive and very close to you. Wait a minute, why was he so close to you? You hadn’t felt it before in your drowsiness, but you two looked like were cuddling… in the same bed…!?</p>
<p>“alsdkjasLKJDSA!!!” you shouted out as you instinctively tried to break apart from the stranger, flustered by this unexpected proximity, only to feel his strong arms securely locking your bodies together once more.</p>
<p>“Be careful, our souls are still attached. It will hurt us both if you run away.” he said carefully. “Trust me, I tried it…” he sighed.</p>
<p>You stopped struggling immediately at his words. It had been one whole week?! Usually it was more like a matter of minutes. And it STILL hurts???</p>
<p>You fell silent for a moment, calming down immediately and switching to problem solving mode, trying to find out what could have happened. After running a few possible scenarios in your head, you lifted your eyes to meet serene turquoise orbs.</p>
<p>“Are you alright?” you simply asked him.</p>
<p>“Ah. Yes” he said flatly.</p>
<p>When you realised that he wasn’t going to elaborate further, you specified your question.</p>
<p>“No no no, I mean, did you feel any particular changes after you woke up?” you corrected, wanting to get as much information as you could from this predicament.</p>
<p>“…I could touch you” he said genuinely after thinking about it for a moment.</p>
<p>It’s not like you could have understood the true meaning of his statement at this moment, not knowing his past struggles at all. You interpreted it as he was happy to have come back to life and be able to still interact physically with other people. Too bad for the lack of clues, but you could see that his resilient soul was feeling pretty glad that he was still alive. Good for him.</p>
<p>“I see…” you answered with a smile. “Well, I guess I should start with my name. I am (y/n), I guess I’ll be in your care from now on”</p>
<p>“Gaara.” he said sleepily before closing his eyes once more and drifting back to sleep.</p>
<p>You did the same to, too tired to try to understand everything all at once without concrete evidence. Finding comfort in Gaara’s arms like it was second nature, you focused on his steady breathing to guide your own and relax your body back to slumber.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Wake up lovebirds! It’s time for breakfast!”</p>
<p>When morning came, you were woken up by a playful female voice. She and Kankuro had taken on the habit of teasing their little brother while waiting for you to wake up. Although they had just escaped the worse by not losing the village chief and their precious sibling, the situation was admittedly still pretty stressful for them with the man being forcibly bedridden with an unconscious stranger for a week now. Other than pure sibling mischief, it ended up being their solution for letting stress out, to the exasperation of the only awake victim. Both you and your sleeping buddy grumbled in unison before Gaara shifted into a sitting position, bringing you with him. You were too out of it to completely realise what he had done and clung to him more in search of the lost warmth of the blankets.</p>
<p>“Just look at you two” she laughed mischievously. “You know, I genuinely can’t wait to see her reaction when she wakes up.”</p>
<p>“Temari, she’s already awake” Gaara responded flatly.</p>
<p>A moment of silence passed between the two siblings before the wind blew in your direction and your nose gradually woke up at the smell of warm bread.</p>
<p>“WHAT? Since when did she - ”, started Temari half-yelling before being interrupted by your soft voice.</p>
<p>“Smells so good…” you said, almost drooling in a half-asleep state. If you had been sleeping for a week like you recalled Gaara telling you last night, you were in dire need of nutrients.</p>
<p>You slowly detached yourself from him and extended your right hand to the pastries that Temari had brought into the room that were now right in front of you, only to feel a twinge of pain at your fingertips. Your half-closed eyes immediately shot open.</p>
<p>You looked back in confusion at Gaara who was not even a meter away from you. He was looking at his own right hand in discomfort. So, you were still linked…to this extent?</p>
<p>“This is not normal”, you finally said, a grim look on your face as you sat back near Gaara to look at his hand. Taking the appendage in your own hand, you could feel that something was definitely wrong.</p>
<p>“So, it’s not supposed to happen?” asked Temari back at you, suddenly her eyes full of concern for her brother.</p>
<p>“Normally, no. Something must have gone wrong when I... Blacking out for so long is also extremely unusual…it never happened before.” In your hands, you were holding Gaara’s own that had felt the same pain as yours, searching for clues once more. You could feel that the soul inside his body was his, no doubt, and that the soul that was inside yours was completely yours as well without any shards going astray between you two. But if it wasn’t a stray puzzle piece, why were you still linked like that? Your mind was all over the place… you couldn’t pinpoint what had gone wrong at all…</p>
<p>Meanwhile, Gaara was sitting still and calm like a statue as he was intently looking at you while you fidgeted with his hand in search for answers. He could feel your warmth passing through his fingers and could hear your soft voice as you mumbled to yourself in speculation. He had been sharing this room with you for a week now, but since you’ve been awake, everything you did seemed to have…a strange effect on him. Having never experienced something like this before, he wondered if it was because of this link thing.</p>
<p>On the other side of the bed, Temari watched the two of you as you were now both finally awake. She watched her brother who looked unexpectedly at ease as a stranger was touching him without fear, and then back at you who she first thought looked cold and distant before, but was now madly looking for a way to fix her mistake with terrible bed hair and a very loud stomach. She remembered when her brother came back to the village, a sleeping girl in his arms, and she thought it was a miracle that he was still alive… But when she watched the two of you interacting so naturally together, all joking aside, she couldn’t help but think that maybe you could save his brother in more ways that one…</p>
<p>In this uncertain atmosphere, you all decided after some time to just …continue the course of your lives the best you could. It’s not like the Kazegake could be on vacation forever.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. A little bird told me… (what happened in-between)</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>For a while, you really couldn’t be far away from Gaara at all. The “safety range”(as you came to call it) being close to a meter, you had to be crafty in finding ways to continue your daily lives. In the end, you ended up spending all your days and nights in the room, mostly in bed, as you would read books Temari brought so you wouldn’t die of boredom. Luckily for you, Sunagakure was a very interesting place full of myths and interesting customs and you had access to the best library in town.</p><p>On Gaara’s side, his brother Kankuro had brought up a small table so that he could continue his work as Kazekage even if he was forcibly bedridden. You would occasionally look up from your books and take interest in their talks, offering advice and talking with them about the different issues they had to deal with. Since your existence had been so secretive in the past, you were quite good at solving complicated situations and seeing all the alternative routes possible. Kankuro had to admit that you had some pretty good sense in you. Gaara seemed to agree.</p><p>You thought that Kankuro was a fun character to be with. “Really fitting to be a brother figure”, you thought. You used to live in close proximity with your Anbu guardians in the past, so maybe it was because of that familiar feeling that one day you decided to ask him the most innocently stupid question of all times, one that surprised even the poor Gaara who had no choice but to be within hearing range. “I just realised, but how have we been managing… bathroom stuff since the beginning? It’s been more than two weeks now and we almost never left the bed since then..?” Kankuro laughed too hard, poor Gaara was frozen in confusion and Temari snickered a little as she told you without going too much into details that, unsurprisingly, they had been using a jutsu developed for soldiers to abstain from needs like that. You retracted in shame into the covers “So..sorry, sometimes I think too much…or not enough.”</p><p>For a second you thought you heard a sharp exhale of Gaara’s nose, indicating that he found your whispered comment funny, but that couldn’t be.</p><p>Your mentally cursed your ignorance due to your very sheltered childhood and made a mental note to study up more later about different types of jutsu to save yourself some future embarrassment. “More books to read…” you thought to yourself, resolute.</p><p> Eventually, the distance you could be at increased and both of you could leave the room to work in the real Kazekage’s office without any fear of feeling pain, as long as you stayed in the same room. At first, the stares you got from some of the building’s staff felt quite uncomfortable as you both continued to go back in the same bedroom. I had been your decision to not hide your presence to make sure the “recovery” wouldn’t take too much extra time, so it must have looked very strange for them to see this stranger following their Kage everywhere like this, but Temari and Kankuro made sure they wouldn’t speak out of place or do something regrettable. The thought of them working so hard to protect their brother’s peace of mind made you smile warmly and you thought that Gaara was very lucky to have them as part of his family even if they were not blood related at all.</p><p>A few days after the Kazekage’s office was open for meetings, Chiyo came to visit. She hadn’t contacted you at all since the events so you figured maybe it was because she was waiting for the right occasion to talk to Gaara after all the dust had settled down. You were there in the office when she apologized sincerely, and even thought it might have seemed that Gaara was very neutral about her repenting, you could tell that it really helped him find closure. Maybe it was because of your ability to be so close to souls but you could see that some of the turmoil inside of him could finally calm down for a bit. You also liked to think that since you had the opportunity to be able to spend so much time closely to him you were now able to see past his resting poker face and decipher the little changes in his expressions.</p><p>You kept contact with Chiyo after that through writing. Since you had similar abilities, it started out as a way of figuring out what had happened with your intervention with Gaara, as Chiyo ended up deciding to travel for a bit after apologising to him. In the end, none of you could find a definitive reason as to why you both ended linked like that. You kept writing letters to her nonetheless as you did with Sakura who had gone back to her village with the other Hidden Leaf ninjas after making sure you were all as ok as you can be in your situation. She got really curious about your ability, like her sensei before her, but as you had explained to Tsunade when you were young, she had a soul too strong to be able to do the same thing as you.</p><p>Months later, although at the beginning you were first confronted with a lot of confused or irritated stares due to the fact that you, a complete stranger from another village, was now spending all of her time close to their very important leader, as time went by and the distance at which you could be from Gaara slowly increased, you found yourself being able to interact more and more with the building’s staff. In your personal quest to become less ignorant about basic things and save you the embarrassment you felt before with your innocent question about “bathroom mechanics”, you first stopped to greet the kitchen staff. Thanks to your ability to see souls, your natural empathy helped you understand their feelings and little by little you eventually were able to successfully forge new friendships throughout the entire building (and also learn more about the cuisine of Sunagakure by the same occasion). If at first you had felt a little trapped, being confined in the secluded area of that one lone tower in the sand village, you now had a pretty varied community of people you knew with all sorts of interesting stories to tell. In the end, it all ended up feeling like you had something like a big family looking out for you, with people with hearts warm as the sun itself.</p><p>On a certain cold night, when neither you nor Gaara seemed to be able to fall asleep, you ended up together on the rooftop of the Kage’s building, silently watching the village as the wind blew gently in the desert. It seemed that it was one of his old habits, but you didn’t mind it at all. If anything, you could see why this high up serene place could bring his tormented soul some sort of solace. It goes without saying that you two had become very close since then, being able to appreciate each other’s presence both in silence and rare argumentations (mostly involving Kankuro and his not too subtle teasing since the “bathroom question” yet again. Would they ever give that a rest..?) Feeling the gentle breeze relax your muscles as you approached the railing, you started humming a tune absent-mindly, completely unguarded from the gentle eyes of your quiet partner.</p><p> “Let me hear?” said Gaara as he shifted closer to you.</p><p>Although there was no need to be this close anymore, Gaara walked over to your side and closed his eyes while he listened to you sing softly for him. It felt natural to be close to him now so, for a while, you just stayed there quietly with him as you watched the village that was already in deep slumber. Soon, their Kage followed suit and rested his head on your shoulder, his breathing even. You carefully stopped singing and placed you hand on top of his head to caress his soft hair, smiling dearly. For such a short amount of time spent together, you already felt like this person had become so precious to you. “One more” you said as you started singing softly again. If you were indeed akin to a bird, you thought that you wouldn’t mind singing for this person for a long long time.</p><p>You stayed in the Sand village like this for another peaceful 4 months.</p><p>During these months you kept regular contact with Tsunade and your Anbu guardians who weren’t so keen to let you stay in another village for such a prolonged amount of time, keeping them updated on your predicament. Eventually, it became clear to you that leaving Gaara’s side wasn’t physically painful anymore and that it would soon be time to make a proper decision. It took you some time to think about it carefully, but in the end it’s with a light heart that the next set of letters you sent to your correspondents was an unapologetic one saying that you honestly wished to stay in Sunagakure. There are a lot of reasons that could be stated as to why you ended up deciding to stay, but the most important one was that it just… felt like the right thing to do. You felt like this was exactly where you were supposed to be at this moment in your life.</p><p>As such, you didn’t feel nervous at all as you continued your daily life, waiting for a response. When the answers came back to you, you went in person to the Kazekage’s office with all the siblings present at your request. You handed out the letters for Temari to read to the others and, like you suspected, in the end everyone had agreed to let you stay in Sunagakure.</p><p>An unexpected silence befell the office.</p><p>‘’Ah…now that I think about it, we didn’t really discuss this together huh… ‘’you second guessed yourself out loud. Maybe you were being too full of yourself, being blessed with so many precious things thanks to a mistake of yours and wanting to keep it all to yourself…</p><p>‘’A…afterall, I asked the Hokage’s permission to stay but I never consulted with you all… sorry.’’ You bowed your head low, trying to hide your conflicted expression. If they said now that they preferred you go back to hidden leaf and continue with your previous life with your guardians, you didn’t know how you would react.</p><p>But as tears of doubt just started to prick your eyes, you heard the familiar sound of Kankuro snickering. You lifted your head a little bit, annoyed but curious to see what he found so funny at this very serious moment for you and you finally saw that he was desperately holding his laughter. The object of his despair was his brother who was comically frozen in place, important papers sitting still in his unmoving hands. His face was, for once, something other than his natural neutral expression: if you could describe it with simple words, you would say that he looked pleasantly surprised, with his lips curled up at the edge forming an uneven rare smile. After a bit of time that felt like an eternity to you, the Kazekage himself spoke, struggling a bit to keep his composure.</p><p>‘’Of course, you are… very welcome to stay here.’’</p><p>As the confirmation came out of his mouth, Temari literally jumped over to you, pulling you into a tight sisterly hug squealing like no tomorrow. She made you spin to the point you felt dizzy. As you clumsily regained your balance after this unexpected carrousel, you glanced up at Kankuro who was grinning the widest you had seen him yet. Finally, you stopped at Gaara’s level who gave you a restrained nod of approval. With everyone’s heart with yours, you felt like the room was filled with a strange kind of happiness and you couldn’t help but think that you were finally… home.</p><p>You felt very loved. And maybe you cried a little bit.</p><p>As you excused yourself out of the Kazekage’s office with the now excited Temari pulling at your arm to arrange an official place for you to live, she confessed to you that she and Kankuro (with the silent approval of Gaara) had already been scheming to find a way to let you stay in the sand village. You couldn’t believe your ears.</p><p>‘’But I’m so happy that you decided to stay here on your own, she said with some sort of relief in her voice. For us, you saving Gaara was nothing short of a miracle, and we’re infinitely grateful to you for that. However, I don’t know if it’s the fact that he was given another shot at life without the pain of being possessed or just you being there for him, but he truly has changed for the better since you’ve appeared in his life. So… thank you so much.’’</p><p>As she looked at you witch such sincerity in her eyes, you knew that even a person without the ability to see souls could see that she felt incredibly grateful. You both cried-laughed together as you decided to pass by the kitchen to get something to calm your raging emotions.</p>
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<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Building a nest</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>You and Gaara didn’t need to be together all the time anymore but now that you had decided to stay in the sand village for good, he developed this kind of unconscious reflex to come to you when he felt stressed out. Temari would sometimes tease you saying that when you weren’t by his side, his eyes would just… kind of look for you in the middle of his work and after a bit, if he didn’t find you, he would just look down and continue his work with a loooong sigh. You thought that it was cute of him, as you suspected that even the man himself didn’t have any awareness that he had developed this strange habit.</p><p>When you weren’t together with any of the siblings, you found a part-time job in the nearby hospital giving a hand to heal injured patients. Although your special ability was to revive people, you also had basic knowledge in healing techniques as well, a skill you had been growing through your correspondences with Chiyo, Sakura and Tsunade.</p><p>You had also been learning how to make puppets with Kankuro on the side. It was something you thought about before when he was still coming in with work when you were bedridden in the beginning of this crazy adventure, but you thought that you could use your soul shattering technique to create something with a soul and give it a body with his own puppet technique. At first, the idea was met with a lot of sceptism from the puppeteer… as it was easy to make mistakes and perform forbidden art, but as he got to spend the last year with you and seeing how motivated you were with the idea, he finally gave in. In he end, he also confessed that he was curious to see what a person with your ability would be able to do.</p><p>And so, it was a rather humid day that you and Kankuro decided to go try out this idea in a pretty secluded area outside after some weeks of preparations. Little did you know that this first outing was about to be used by him and his sister to get you and Gaara some alone time together. Although Kankuro was extremely curious about how your little experimentation would go, he was confident that you absolutely wouldn’t be able to do it on your very first try and had arranged a more… interesting scenario.</p><p>You had decided to try out your idea with the puppet of a sparrow, ironically. With the help of your surprisingly serious teacher when it came to puppet making, you had built this bird automaton from the ground up. It looked really promising, and with some tips you received from Chiyo’s letters you had some ideas in your head how you could make this work with your ability.<br/>
<br/>
After a bit of basic training, Kankuro left you to practice with your bird puppet on you own. You were quite happy to be able to have free time to try this silly idea, but you were also dreading the fact that you had to assemble the automaton on the spot with all the tiny pieces.</p><p>‘’It will be good practice, said the painted puppeteer snickering at your obvious lack of enthusiasm. If it ever gets damaged in combat or other situation, you will be able to repair it in seconds, so you better learn how to assemble it fast now.’’</p><p>And so, you took your time to pull out the bird puppet out of your bag and assemble it. It took you quite a bit of time, not being used to it at all yet and cursing at yourself to have made it using such an intricate mechanism, but you got there eventually.</p><p>Once everything was done, you decided it was time to start your first attempt. You laughed a little bit at yourself, thinking that you didn’t need to straddle this poor tiny little bird this time as you had with Gaara when you revived him… It had felt really embarrassing at the time, but you had to do this when reviving people so that they would stay close to you when they came to, or else they ran the risk of dying again by moving too soon. “Happened in the past”, you thought bitterly.</p><p>As you sat up straight this time around, right in front of your puppet, you started focusing on your soul and chakra flow. But just as you were starting to be able to focus more and more, you felt a familiar soul close by.</p><p>And by close by you meant close enough to be actually watching you practice.</p><p>‘’Gaara, is that you?’’ you called out, opening your eyes.</p><p>Sure enough, after hearing some steps slowly approaching to where you were, the man himself was standing right in front of you.</p><p>‘’Were you taking a walk? How unusual of you.’’ You said, thinking that he was always so serious when he worked and hardly ever took a break. Somehow, it made you happy thinking that he had finally listened to his siblings’ and your suggestion to go out and just… breathe for a couple of minutes.</p><p>You weren’t surprised when he didn’t even answer your question and just walked past to sit down behind you.</p><p>“You can continue’’, he said to you while crossing his arms and closing his eyes. So, he was going to take a nap here as well? You laughed a little, thinking that he could be so childish sometimes.</p><p>‘’It’s good to see him being so carefree like this’’ you smiled and thought to yourself while you resumed your training.</p><p>You were actually able to focus on your project for some time, but soon enough your thoughts were all drifting toward your napping companion.</p><p>It was good to see him more relaxed nowadays, as Temari had suspected. But ever since reviving Gaara, you had felt that something had changed in you too. The strange consequences that had unfolded after your intervention had been embarrassing for sure, being forced to spend all of your time joined at the hips with this important person, but not totally unwelcome. You had felt it, even when you were searching for his soul for the first time, that this person had been through a lot and you couldn’t help but feel very…admirative?</p><p>No, the word you were looking for wasn’t admiration. Although you did feel impressed seeing him work so seriously all the time. It was a lot of paperwork, but you could tell it really had an impact on the world outside of the Kage’s office from what you heard all the time from the Kazekage’s building visitors. Souls felt brighter and more secure, being protected by their dutiful leader.</p><p>In that regard, you also felt a little proud to be one of his close friends. He was an important person to his village, but if he ever needed a second opinion on delicate matters, he wouldn’t hesitate to ask you for a chat. He was a smart man and had developed an amazing sense of leadership over the years he had been a Kage, but sometimes he would still struggle with questions of morals and what would be the human consequences of his decisions. For you who could connect to other’s souls, you had gained from it a great sense of empathy which you were happy to share with him when he seemed to be struggling with these kinds of decisions. It felt good to be relied on.</p><p>But pride wasn’t the name of the feeling you had in you either.</p><p>As you slowly opened your eyes after a discouraging amount of tries to put a part of your soul into the bird puppet, you thought that maybe it would be wiser to wait until Gaara wasn’t around to try it so that your thoughts wouldn’t be in such a mess.</p><p>Twisting your body around so that you could face his sleeping figure, you wondered.</p><p>‘’How can he be so distracting when all he does is just… be there with me?’’</p><p>You slowly made your way up to him and softly tapped his shoulder to make him up. You had seen this sight countless of times when you were both bedridden together: him waking up and opening his eyes that were not quite blue, but not quite green either.  </p><p>‘’See how much you needed to take a break? You were napping so soundly like an old man’’ you teased him. He grunted in response, struggling to fully wake up.</p><p>Man, this boy really couldn’t help but be childish when he was around you.</p><p>“Come on, stop being so adorable.’’ You carelessly let the word slip past your tongue and you freeze in shock.</p><p>Adoration.</p><p>It somehow felt right. If you could think about a word to describe your feelings for this person, it would be something close to adoration. Not the kind of religious adoration people could have for some sort of deity of course, but the kind where you want to cherish the person so much it hurts. Something stronger than any of the Sunagakure villagers must be feeling about their leader, and something you felt went beyond the feeling of ‘’family’’, because you felt so much more for him than for Temari or Kankuro.</p><p>You instantly blushed, and ungracefully tried to make sense of this new feelings out loud.</p><p>‘’I MEAN, hum! You’re ALWAYS adorable and I don’t want you to STOP BUT…! But right now my heart just wants to squeeze you tight and we really shouldn’t stay here for longer because hum.. work? Also WOAH look at the TIME is the sun setting already??’’</p><p>Your struggle was evident in your attempt to deal with your embarrassment, and unfortunately for you it’s an arm very heavy with sleep that snaps you out of it and drags you into the chest of the very object of your despair.</p><p>‘’Five more minutes’’ he says in a childish tone and squeezing his body tightly into yours, like your heart wanted.</p><p>‘’…like I said, stop being so adorable…’’ you said more calmly but still restless, feeling his whole soul wash into you like a comforting blanket.</p><p>Again, it felt right.</p><p>And you couldn’t push back the feeling that you wanted to stay like this forever anymore.</p><p>-</p><p>‘’Why are they taking so much time to come back? ‘’ asked a very worried Temari as she and her brother were making their way up to the training ground he had left his diligent student practicing 4 hours prior. The plan was that Temari would try and overload Gaara with an impossible amount of work while talking a lot about you and how Kankuro was telling her how hard you were working on your new project, that incidentally you were trying out today on the training grounds. Both the siblings knew that you hadn’t have time recently to talk to him about the details of your experiment so, if they nudged their brother enough, he would eventually get curious and go out to find you on his own.  </p><p>“Maybe they’re making out?’’ answered the painted puppeteer wriggling his eyebrows.</p><p>An incredible gust of wind flew him back at least ten steps back.</p><p>‘’They’re not… ready for that yet…’’ blushed Temari as she struggled to believe that her clueless red-haired brother would ever be able to do something so outrageous in his life.</p><p>As they approached the training ground, she stopped dead in her track.</p><p>‘’Are they still here?’’ asked Kankuro, slowly catching up to her.</p><p>“…look at how fucking adorable they look like.’’ She whispered, carefully making her way to the two intertwined sleeping figures.</p><p>Kankuro’s eyes scanned the area and soon saw his baby brother lovingly cuddling his new student. Somehow, for a moment, he felt like a proud parent. But as he was looking at you two, he noticed that the bird automaton wasn’t on the ground where he had last saw it.</p><p>And then, he noticed it. His voice almost cracked.</p><p>‘’Temari, is the sparrow that she is holding in her hand… breathing?’’</p>
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<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Fly so high you might touch the sun</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The first thing you remembered after waking up from your very comfortable nap was a frantic Kankuro desperately shaking your shoulders. You couldn’t understand even a word that the painted puppeteer was saying, but you could feel the urgency in his voice, and it made you nervous. Gaara, who was still holding you protectively in his arms, probably felt you tense up and shot an angry glare at his brother, fully awake from the sound of his shouted nonsense. But the pure distress the man was feeling right now was too great to notice the glare and it took even Temari smacking him away a second time that day with her big fan for him to come back to his senses and become coherent again.</p><p>“How the HELL did you manage to put a soul into your first ever automaton on your FIRST TRY?” he finally managed to get out after some time. He sounded impressed, but mostly… concerned.</p><p>Now fully awake, you tried to recall the best you could how you had fallen asleep after trying it out unsuccessfully. You were certain that you had left the automaton in the clearing. Looking at Kankuro with truthful eyes, you confirmed that it was nowhere near your hands when you drifted off to sleep.</p><p>Kankuro fell silent for a moment, not knowing how to react. And then he said “…Since you don’t know how you managed to make this happen, there’s still a possibility that you used… kinjutsu in your sleep.”</p><p>“Kinjutsu?” you asked worried. It was a word you had heard before from your Anbu guardians and it made you shiver.</p><p>“Your special ability is already close to the limit of Kinjutsu since you’re basically violating the laws of nature and bringing people back from the dead. But since it’s a completely unique skill to you and you only use it for good, I guess we can overlook it...” Kankuro treaded carefully.</p><p>“However… this creature you made in your sleep… do you have any idea of what kind of soul is inside of it right now?”</p><p>You slowly looked down at the mechanical sparrow peacefully sleeping in your hands. It wasn’t warm at all but you could feel it pulsed with some kind of life. You had to admit, Kankuro had a point… and there was only one way to find out the information he asked. You brought your face close to the breathing mechanical sparrow and kissed its smooth forehead, searching for any kind of information that would help you determine what kind of soul was inside of this new life you accidently created. As you did, everyone around you held their breath.</p><p>The first thing you noticed was… how small the poor soul was inside the shell of the puppet body. It felt like this poor soul was almost crushed into inexistence before and was surviving on its last breath inside the safety of the automaton. The soul itself felt… feisty. It felt like it was fighting with all its strength to stay alive in its new body and you couldn’t help but be reminded of Gaara’s resilient soul when you first felt it. It really was the kind of soul you tended to want to protect at all cost.</p><p>As you broke out the kiss slowly and came back to reality, you exhaled at your inability to identify the new existence.</p><p>“The only thing I can confirm is… that it’s probably not human in nature” you stated slowly to try and balance out the nervous energy you felt from everyone else. “Human souls are really complex and would fill such a tiny mechanism to the brim, but what I feel in this sparrow is almost like a drop of water in this whole shell, making me think that it’s probably just a stray fragment of some sort of animal that happened to stray into it. It wouldn’t be impossible for it to be from a real sparrow even, living or dead.”</p><p>“…would a soul fragment be even enough to make the puppet breathe like it’s doing right now?” carefully asked Temari who wasn’t sure how to interpret this whole situation.</p><p>“From what I can tell from my previous experiences, souls are very mysterious existences. I can’t say for sure, but I’d say it’s possible that one fragment alone can carry some of the will of its lost host. From what I could feel in this poor puppet, the soul that is currently trapped inside is surviving on instinct alone and is probably emulating bodily functions to make it feel like it’s still alive, hence the breathing.”</p><p>Temari hummed in understanding. Kankuro stayed silent.</p><p>While the two siblings seemed to be weighting your words in their heads, Gaara stepped closer to you and put a reassuring hand on your shoulder. All the while you were trying to come up with a reasonable explanation to calm down the uncharacteristically worried Kankuro, you had increasingly become more tense to the point you were almost shaking. You glanced up at Gaara who was looking at you with calm and collected eyes, and it felt like it had the power to wash away all of your worries in an instant. “Ah…there is at least one person who trusts me no matter what happens and would always be behind me”, was the feeling you got from his kind eyes. Your sighed in relief and offered a grateful smile as thanks, which was returned in kind with an understanding nod.</p><p>As you started to feel the same feeling of adoration you had felt before creep up in your heart, you heard the unmistakable flutter of mechanical wings coming out of your hands where you had been holding up the sparrow puppet. Kankuro and Temari’s jaw dropped to the floor as the bird started to fly on its own and aim directly to Gaara’s face in what seemed like… anger?</p><p>Poor Gaara was taken by surprise, probably having never imagined that anything dangerous could happen if he was next to you.</p><p>Suddenly, it was your turn to panic like Kankuro did before while you tried your best to catch the intricate automaton you had spent hours and hours meticulously making, torn between the feeling of getting it out the fastest possible of the object of your newfound adoration and the need to catch it delicately to not break it. Temari couldn’t help a small laugh at the absurdity of the scene as she watched in awe the odd couple struggling to catch the slippery sparrow.</p><p>“Almost looks like the bird was jealous of Gaara just now…” she thought out loud to her still pensive brother.</p><p>“…at least it’s not strong enough to do real damage” the expert puppeteer sighed after some time as he watched you pull a piece of loose clothing over the flying offender like a net and finally securing the feisty bird.</p><p>“I’ll remember that” said Gaara under his breath to the thundering prisoner in his makeshift pouch that was now on the ground. After securing the threat, you made your way to him and placed your hands over his scratched face in apology, healing immediately the numerous scratches he had got from your new “pet”.</p><p>“Oh well, if this is the most harm this bird can do, I guess it’s not worth worrying myself to death.” Concluded Kankuro after a while, turning around and gesturing to everyone that it was time to go back home. “I guess I should just thank my lucky star that you chose to build a sparrow instead of a big ferocious beast.” He joked, finally back to his unserious self.</p><p>And just like that, you ended up the day with a new “familiar”.   </p>
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<a name="section0006"><h2>6. Like a bird in a cage</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p> </p><p>You decided to name the sparrow “Tori”. It wasn’t very original but it suited it perfectly as the little sounds the bird automaton made with its metallic parts were high-pitched and made a sound similar to it’s new name. When you first called it, it seemed to like its new name as well so you just continued to call it like that, amazed that you could get reactions from this new life-form.</p><p>Tori proved to be very intelligent indeed; it could understand your instructions perfectly, seemingly able to understand human speech. Your first investigation had indicated that it was not human in nature, but your subsequent observations had come to the conclusion that it must have been someone’s pet or something to be so smart and obedient. “How convenient…” you thought with fondness as you never had the opportunity to own a pet before in your secluded life. You thus found your time training with the automaton so much more fulfilling than expected and ended developing a very strong bond with the creature. Even Kankuro was surprised at your progress when he saw the both of you execute extremely precise tasks from a long distance.</p><p>“I don’t think it will ever be fit to be used as a weapon in battle, but for stealth missions and information gathering, this thing is quite the beast…” he concluded after witnessing the two of you get by a practice session in the forest with not even a scratch on either of you. He had loaded the forest with puppets and traps and dared you to traverse it the fastest possible as a test after you had boasted about Tori’s abilities, expecting you to trigger at least some of his mechanisms, but you had exceeded all of his expectations by far.</p><p>“Whatever is inside the sparrow, it clearly loves you to death” he said to you after seeing your unbelievable partnership in action.</p><p>“So do I!” you answered excitedly, extremely proud of your performance and affectionately petting the sparrow on its head in high praise. Tori singed a happy note in response.</p><p>“What a good mom you are” Kankuro joked as he turned on his heel to go back to the Kazekage’s building, motioning you to come along as it was already getting dark out.</p><p>“I’m not really sure what a good mom would be though” you said, following suit.</p><p>And if Kankuro had been facing you when you said it, he would have caught the sliver of sadness in your smile.</p><p>--------------</p><p>Tori was smart indeed, but also extremely territorial. Whenever someone you didn’t know well approached you, it would puff up its mechanical parts in anger. Temari had a theory that whichever creature Tori was in the past, it was probably male in nature and you couldn’t help but laugh and agree. The sparrow seemed to be exceptionally offended by Gaara’s presence who he would automatically assault if he was remotely close to you. The situation was quite comical at times where he would only be a corner away and you would see the bird fly straight out of your pocket where you kept it when not in training, only to hear grunts seconds later that you knew came from the Kazekage. You had apologized a ridiculous amount of times to him by now, seemingly unable to control the beast’s fierce jealousy.</p><p>What was even more funny was that the siblings reported to you that Gaara was genuinely distressed by the fact that he couldn’t be by your side whenever he wanted anymore. They told you tales of times where the always calculating Kazekage would stand out to go out and then, as suddenly as he had gotten up, go back to sit seconds later in dismay. There was even one time where Kankuro had only whistled to tease his brother and watched the man go from excitement that you might be nearby, to Oh no Tori is also here, to Kankuro I’m going to kill you.</p><p>Unfortunately, what the siblings didn’t tell you was that your absence in their brother’s life really was affecting him negatively, to the point some of his executives took notice as it was sometimes cracking beyond his usual poker face. The Kazekage’s strange change in attitude was causing discomfort in his usually straight-to-the-point meetings. The line between funny antics and real political problem was currently tin, and it was with great precaution that the siblings were threading carefully between the two.</p><p>While keeping you two lovebirds mostly in the dark about the precarious political state of affairs, Kankuro had decided to continue to record your progress in a sealed scroll for prosperity. His initial queasiness about your creation long gone now and replaced by due admiration, he couldn’t help but feel that your invention had some kind of hidden potential.</p><p>“Kankuro, said Gaara entering his workshop suddenly, we have a meeting in 10 minutes to assign an important mission.”</p><p>“What…? Why are you only telling me now?” asked his brother flabbergasted by Gaara’s lack of organisation. Usually he was on top of his schedule at all time...?</p><p>“…It slipped my mind.” Was his honest response.</p><p>Kankuro took a moment to consider his brother’s expression before kicking his butt out of his chair and making his way to him in a hurry.</p><p>“Then let’s not waste any time! When I get back I’ll work on a cage for Tori so you can go see (y/n) whenever you want ok? This is getting ridiculous…”</p><p>“Why are you mentioning (y/n) right now? It’s not about her at all-”</p><p>“Yeah yeah, say that to me again when you don’t look so forlorn alright?”</p><p>At that he could only open his mouth just to close it again, as he couldn’t say anything in his defense. Even he himself could see that he was becoming more forgettable, more irritated and on edge since he wasn’t able to get past her tiny mechanical guardian.</p><p>The two brothers left in such a hurry that they didn’t realise that they left the scroll out in the open for anyone to grab…</p><p>----------</p><p>It was night when it happened.</p><p>You had gone up to the roof where you had stood there months prior with Gaara, him comfortably sleeping on your shoulder while you absentmindedly humed a tune to the night. That moment had felt perfect, and you would be lying to yourself if you didn’t acknowledge your longing for him. You had found the tales of Gaara being adorable from the siblings pretty funny at first, but you were sure that they could also tell some of your own embarrassments to him. Like the time you had only mentioned his name in an upgrade session for Tori and the poor bird had been stuck poofed up for a good hour due to mechanical malfunction. Or that one time Tori wasn’t actually there but when you finally got alone with Gaara you couldn’t help but worry about the attacks and only ended up talking about the sparrow instead. You had so much more to say to him too!</p><p>“What an idiot” to said to yourself as you were sure that only an idiot…in love… would be able to be so clumsy with someone they previously literally spent months within a less than a meter radius.</p><p>You had started to realise it as the occasion to meet with him decreased. Your adoration transformed into longing and then the longing became a young maiden’s love, the kind of blooming sentiment that was uncontrollably embarrassing and that you could only be ashamed of now.</p><p>With your head in the clouds, you didn’t hear at all the enemy approaching you from behind, and even less than that, you didn’t even realise that a powerful genjutsu was casted on you. Slowly, you fell into a deep slumber on the railings before being kidnapped to a remote place, unseen by anyone.</p>
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<a name="section0007"><h2>7. A sparrow’s song</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The sound of fighting filled your ears as a pair of faltering arms holds you close. Your first instinct wasn’t to ask yourself what you were doing there, but immediately jumped to the all too familiar feeling of despair this scene reminded you of. Dreadfully, you started to open your eyes and looked up, hoping for dear life that you wouldn’t see her tear strained face looking down on you.</p><p>You were wrong.</p><p>You realised in horror that the woman holding your much smaller frame was singing an all too familiar lullaby in an attempt to sooth your streaming tears.</p><p>“Mother…” you choked.</p><p>The smell of burning flesh was thick in the nearby forest as the nine-tail beast rampaged around through the night. The sound of fighting of brave men and women resonated in the high ceiling of the barn you and your mom were hiding in, mixing with the lullaby. She kissed your forehead, wet with her tears as she started to lose consciousness more and more due to her grave injuries.</p><p> Your house had been attacked by scavengers, hoping to take advantage of the chaos to get some valuables. Your parents were not trained ninjas, but instead farmers with big hearts who always gave good rewards to genins when they commissioned their help on the field to encourage them. Unfortunately, their generosity might have been the reason why they got targeted in the first place: the thieves might have thought that they could get the most reward by pillaging your remote house. Your dad was the first to encounter them in the field with a torch in his hand, but after hearing the scoundrels decide on disposing of him rather than peacefully leave, he used his precious last breath to tell you and your mom standing on the porch to hide quickly. What was one more casualty, or three, in this historical massacre after all?</p><p>Your mom rapidly took hold of you in her arms and started to run through the house in direction of the barn on the other side. You heard a grunt, then she stumbled, but held on you tighter as she continued to run to her destination. You both entered the barn and she placed you on the ground weakly. When she turned around to set free your animals and set the hay on fire to create confusion, you saw it: 3 kunais were deeply stuck in her back and with each movement more and more blood was spilling out into her night dress. When she finally turned around to pick you up and hide further in the storage cave beneath the barn, she was singing, hopelessly hoping to calm you down, saying everything was going to be ok, that there was nothing to be afraid of.</p><p>You remembered this part painfully, and you also remembered her body becoming more and more limp as she fell into the cold ground of the storage.</p><p>“Mother…?” you asked, squeezing in vain the arms that once held you with bruising force to get you to safety.</p><p>“…Mom…?” you repeated, your voice weakening as you looked at her pale face.</p><p>“Mom! It’s going to be ok…! I’ll sing to you too ok??” You said with your tears pouring again, delaying the inevitable realisation to dawn on you.</p><p>And you started to sing her song about sparrows.</p><p>Again, and again.</p><p>And then you kissed your mother’s forehead, tears streaming down your face like hers did on yours.</p><p>And then the impossible happen.</p><p>You saw flickers of light around you, erratically flying in the dark. You didn’t quite understand what was happening, but one of them passed in front of you, and you could swear it was singing.</p><p>You jumped at it, catching it in your tiny hands, and held it close to you, feeling deep into your heart that it was the most precious thing in the world. In childish glee, you brought it back to your mother, wanting to show it to her how pretty it glowed, but as you got closer to her body the fragment started to gravitate towards her, an invisible force pulling it toward her inanimate body. You were only inches away when the singing sparrow was yanked out of your tiny hands and melted down into her chest. You fell down, not from the force of the pull, but in a sudden extreme exhaustion. As your eyes slowly felt more heavy, you could swear that you saw your mother’s open.</p><p>When you finally woke up, your mom was again holding you safe in her arms, singing to you. You couldn’t believe your eyes. Her complexion was still ghostly pale, but she was right there, and that’s all that mattered to you. The sound of fighting had since then stopped outside, meaning that the big fight was probably over by now. Now that you were both safe, you heard your mom’s final words:</p><p>“Sweetie, I’ll go up and go check on dad ok? Until I say so, please don’t come out alright? Will you be a good girl for me one last time?”</p><p>You nodded.</p><p>You watched your mother go up the ladder of the storage room, noticing the blood of her precious injuries had dried since then. She winced in pain at the effort but continued forth until she was out.</p><p>Back then, you genuinely thought that the pain she felt was because of the three stabs in her back, but now your mind was screaming to warn her to come back. You did not realise it then, but her soul was slowly breaking apart, now unable to be stabilized by your newfound ability.</p><p>You remember in the morning when the Anbu opened the latch of the storage room and found you patiently waiting. You remember their body go stiff when you asked where your mom was. They brought you outside calmly, and in the light of the rising dawn you saw her again, laying on the ground, with both bleeding and dried up wounds on her back.</p><p>The Anbu had been called to the scene because of the unusual state of the body of your mom, and as they patiently listened to your story, they must have realised at some point that they found an incredible ability.</p><p>The memories came rushing in now, how they took you under their wings and trained you, how you experimented with your ability with animals first and your first ever secret support mission. The countless people you saved and failed to save. Your Anbu family, Gaara’s family…</p><p>---------------------------------------------</p><p>“Gaara..!” you awoke with a start.</p><p>You swiftly looked around and found yourself in a stone cell. It was dark, but beyond the bars a torch was illuminating a person who slowly made its way to your cell, probably alerted by your scream.</p><p>“Took you a while to wake up, princess” said the man dressed in thief’s garments. “I can’t believe such a weak girl like you could sway the kazekage, took you hours to break out of my genjutsu!” he laughed, mocking you.</p><p>Genjutsu? So this man used an illusion technique to make you relive your past…</p><p>…wait… sway the kazekage…?</p><p>“Can’t believe they made us hire this expensive assassin too urgh!” said the man as he turned around to scoff at a shadowy figure hiding just beyond the torch’s reach. “I’ll leave you to it, not worth my time honestly.”</p><p>The rude man then left, leaving you with the assassin.</p><p>You swiftly stood up, ready to defend yourself, the cell keeper too negligent to even tie you up. You didn’t have any weapon in your possession right now, and you rapidly realised that Tori was nowhere to be found either, but you definitely wouldn’t go down without a fight.</p><p>The hired assassin slowly opens the gate and you run toward it, hoping to catch him off guard. Instead you ear your name slip out of his mouth.</p><p>You stop.</p><p>The assassin then tackles you into the ground and you struggle for your dear life. It goes on for a minute and then you hear him say “Scream loudly. Once”</p><p>And you do.</p><p>And then he pins you into the ground where you are unable to move.</p><p>The silence is deafening.</p>
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